First day back after the half-term holiday and it’s immediately clear what I’ve been reading in
my week off. Both this and the piece that follows were written the same morning and both
directly inspired by the comic 2000 AD. Like the Judge Dredd story I wrote in my Topic book
around the same time (maybe the same week - it’s impossible to know), this tale is based on
an actual strip I read in the comic. But where the Dredd story is slavishly copied word for
word, this one is different - this one takes liberties, written in my own words, with my own
unique new ending.
Fiends of the Eastern Front is a story by Gerry Finley-Day with art by Carlos Ezquerra, which
ran in 2000 AD from Prog 152 (published on or around February 9th, 1980) to Prog 161 (April
12th). Unusually for 2000 AD, it didn’t feature any sci-fi elements - no aliens, no space,
nothing futuristic - instead opting to tell a macabre tale about Eastern European vampires in
the second world war. The ‘heroes’ of the story, if you can call them that, are German
soldiers, who enlist the help of these vampires (‘Rumanians’ - led by a gaunt figure called
Captain Constanta) to defeat the Russian army as they progress eastwards in 1941. I imagine
one or two of you might wonder if this was appropriate reading matter for an eight-year-old.
I’ve no idea about that. But I do know I must have loved it, or I wouldn’t have dedicated three
whole pages to retelling the story.
It’s a paraphrase rather than a strict retelling. I don’t think I had any of the comics with me
on the day - some of the lines of dialogue are almost word-for-word but not quite, and the
details don’t necessarily happen in the right order. So it all has an air of being plucked from
memory rather than copied or planned. This works very much to the story’s advantage (if
you’re looking for prime quality bad kid writing that’s unintentionally funny) or disadvantage
(if you actually want it to be a ‘good’ piece of credible, competent storytelling). But either
way, it’s a far, far easier and more interesting read than the slab of words I copied out for
The Blood of Satanus (and no more ridiculous).
The biggest deviation from the original comic strip, however, is that I’ve provided my own
ending. The story had only been running for three weeks so far (the latest edition, Prog 154,
had arrived in shops just two days prior*) and was still a couple of months from conclusion.
Here the first two pages cover the events from the first three instalments, with my tacked-on
ending taking up most of the third page.
I wish I could say it’s entirely my idea, but it isn’t. The original strip opens in the present day
(‘Autumn 1980’ to be precise) with a pair of blokes uncovering the skeleton of Hans Schmitt,
looking very much as I’ve drawn him here, sitting in a chair with only his journal for company
(I don’t mention this but if you zoom into the picture you’ll see a small representation of
‘Hans Schmitt’s Diary’), surrounded by lifesize silhouettes. The bulk of the story is then told in
flashback, a device which I’ve chosen to completely ignore. So it was easy enough to
extrapolate something from the evidence I already have. And if you ever decide to read the
original, I can reassure you now that it is at least slightly different.
Fiends of the Eastern Front
The Forgotten World
John and Mick fall foul
of some extreme
potholing
Bonfire Night
Waen’s first time at the
annual village fireworks
display
String Orchestra
A visit from the North
Yorkshire County
Council Orchestra
TOPIC 2
The one where it all
kicks off
TERM 2
The birth of the 1980s -
Blake’s 7, Blondie and
battles in space
TOPIC 1
He knows the names of
all the dinosaurs
Great Space Battles
Three mighty empires
take their first steps
into outer space
FAIRBURN
The place where I wrote
all this rubbish
Darth Vader
An autograph from a
genuine stand-in
Sheet Lightning
Waen and his Gran
shelter from the sheet-
shaped storm
Ward’s 7
John Ward and his band
of rebels fight the evil
Federation
I don’t find my ending entirely convincing. What kills the Rumanians? Why are they just
shadows on the wall? If Hans died instantly, had he already written his diary? Why is the
diary even there, when I didn’t use it as a narrative-framing device? Why, after he was dead,
did he end up sitting down? The real ending, as written by Finley-Day, isn’t entirely
convincing either, but I won’t ruin it for you.
*Nerdy Note for Comic-Dating Fans
I was thrilled to discover on reading this that, while my memories of buying 2000 AD every
Saturday as a kid are at odds with the paper’s insistence it was ‘In Orbit Every Monday’ (as
splashed on its front cover each week), I’ve now got hard evidence that I was right. The
events in the story are pulled fresh from Prog 154, with a cover date of Saturday March 1st. If
it was out the previous Monday, as the cover suggests, that would make it the same day as
me writing this. Which would mean I’d have had to get up at the crack of dawn, ask my Dad
to drive me to the nearest town (Castleford, where he worked) and buy the comic there
(because we didn’t have a newsagent in Fairburn). Then Dad would have to drive me back a
couple of miles to the village, before taking a second Castleford trip back to work. I’d then
have to read the comic hurriedly in the morning before going to school (presumably late
now, and on the first day of half-term), so I could digest it fully over the course of the
morning and write it up later in the day. Not very likely. So breathe deep and easy - we now
know it’s 99.9% certain I bought it on Saturday instead.
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
INSPIRED BY…
Captain Carnivore
Gary Shepherd is
hunted down by a
deadly flying meteor
Florence Nightingale
What if Florence
Nightingale had lived in
the Year 2000?
Optical Illusion Time
Amazing visual tricks
that will boggle your
mind!